Liberty’s Library shared this wonderful video of her Sendak Artist Roll!

Smudge and Other Pandemic Pages

“If you like to write or draw or dance or sing, do it because it’s great: as long as we’re playing around like that, we don’t feel lonely, and our hearts warm up.”
–from The Woman Who Killed the Fish by Clarice Lispector

I’ve been making books and filling them for as long as I can remember. The books pile up – a slow and steady drip of ink on paper that may someday push us out of our home. One of the gifts of the pandemic is a clear time frame. I’ve decided to go back into my journals – specifically, into the pandemic pages, to see what I could find. I found the patterns of our lives on repeat, everything obsessively documented as if we wouldn’t live without record of it. I found Pearl, and plants, grief and illness, disappearance and disappointment, homeschooling, camping, movement, and details so small I needed the quiet of a pandemic to experience them. It is a strange vocation, to be this kind of capturer of the quotidian.

“What is the conversation?” asks Claire, a few times. Conversation? I don’t know how to answer that. The conversation is on the pages, extracted from life, fragments rearranged, stories imagined, reimagined. Patterns, tatters. Is there ever an actual anything, or is everything imagined? There isn’t a conversation – there are infinite conversations and there are no conversations. It depends on who stands in front of what, and where. It depends on who is next to them. How engaged they are. How curious. It depends on what I say here, if anything, and whether you read it. Will you?

Just before the pandemic, I chose a word for the year, for 2020: The word was lightness. I wrote:

“My word for the year is lightness. I love this idea of finding a word to live alongside. So far, (so early but so far), it has freed me from the fear of not making the right marks. It has led me to say yes to a wintry adventure at the seashore where with wet knees and raisoned fingers, we searched for Cape May diamonds with the enthusiasm of children whilst the actual children played with drones, dipped their feet (and pants) into the frigid water, gathered a few specimens, and made their way back to the warm car. These are things that I love, but the weight of obligation and difference and the world’s expectations make it difficult to be so light. The more I forget this, the longer I sit. The longer I sit, the heavier I get – the weight of the dust settling upon me. Lightness. The word, my companion, reminds me to hover and to float – to move and to keep moving.”

It was the right choice, this word, and it came just in time.

From A Tear and A Seed	A sneaky peek!

The Things That I remember Are Not in These Photographs	SMUDGE! Left-handed (non-dominant) hand drawings.

A Tear and A Seed... drawings from a book I didn’t illustrate.	A stack of my smudge journals!

Our First Storefront! 

Shop Our Shop!

“...the impeded stream is the one that sings.”
–from Our Real Work by Wendell Berry

The pileup is usually an effective way of moving us into high speed. We will open our barn doors tomorrow, for the first time, as a Peg and Awl storefront! It will also be filled with our art, which is most often squirreled away under our rounded bodies as we scribble, cut, or swish with whatever materials are at hand upon our pages.

We are still scrambling, but hope you come by and say hey! Email us for the address or find it at the Chester County Studio Tour website. Parking is limited – if ours is filled, park in the nearby neighborhood! If I have time, I’ll mow some roadside invasives for side-of-the-road parking.

Pouches!	We have a new batch of A Rural Pen ink!

Seaside Tote, Caddies, &c.	Some of our Last Chance waxed canvas bags are in the storefront!

New Prints from A Tear and A Seed (coming soon to our website, maybe...)	We will stock our jewelry in this old treasure!

Walter, Søren, and Silas!

We are still working and will share updates on Instagram! 

Søren has been working on this gigantic map for months! Come see it in progress or on Instagram @sorenscoutkent

Silas has been working with Copic markers and recently has been drawing cars, an interest he shares with his Pop – his grandfather!	Walter will be sharing portraits and landscapes in oil and pencil. He is still navigating his space! @pegandawlbuilt and @pegandawl

Everywhere, Astonishments!

The Chester County Studio Tour features 200 artists including one of my very favourite humans – Claire Rosen, at her home, Warwick Furnace Farm.	Heidi, whom I trust I’ll meet in person someday, is another wondrous being whom I am grateful to know. This book is gorgeous. Her language, exploration, and connection to the earth has inspired me for years. Now, in book form, tis utter magic!

Becky Tregear Art shared this wonderful video of her father painting en plein air with his Scout Plein Air Box!

Becky also shared this very thoughtful review of her father’s watercolor Scout. I love hearing her perspective as she walks through and discovers the features of the Scout, after watching Walter’s walkthrough video. Enjoy!

“Margo is joined by Margaux Kent, Co-Founder of Peg and Awl. Margaux and her husband Walter created Peg and Awl without a plan but rather a fortunate pairing of two minds, different but in sync. Together with a team they create from olde things, treasures found and recovered from misfortune and neglect, relics of the unusual, the confused and the macabre, cut and pulled and built into wearable curiosities, inscribable keepsakes and usable, long-lasting treasures.” – View on Window Chats

Episode 121: Designing and Making Useful Treasures That Inspire Creative Living With Margaux Kent of Peg and Awl

Margo and I discuss discovery, poetry, and all sorts of making; we also talk about the beginnings of Peg and Awl, the importance of promoting oneself and keeping everything in house, and more. But listen for yourself! I do blather a lot, but, erm, practice shall improve the ongoingness in time!

Each new Of a Kind collection allows us to dig around and find treasures within treasures. Every discovery holds a bit of the past, and the story and marks accumulated. They are a joy to put together and harken back to the best part of our origin story – the gathering of old things and the reimagining and reworking of them into once again useful objects.

We have a handful of journals covered with Antique Leather Postcards!	We have a selection of crossbody bags made with our limited canvas colors and vintage textiles!

Our Springy 2023 Of a Kind Collection!

Happy Spring! We are getting outside, digging in the dirt, and being surprised again at the bounty of colour, texture, and wonder of the season.

This Spring collection has a different color palette than we are used to here – a Spring of the past, which is familiar, but also a palette of Peg and Awl’s past. As we are working through the layers of the shop, we are finding so many good treasures once buried, like the beloved Antique Leather postcards. We have an abundance of small treasures, as well as some particularly special bags and colour arrangements!

Have a wander through our collection of bags and pouches made with homespun linen, a delightful variety of quilt blocks – these are much older and remind me of my childhood. There are also 1960s hardware store aprons, feedsacks, and 1930s dressmakers cotton, along with some of our favourite scraps of scraps, with which we made a variety of littles. Some of the bags are made with our classic waxed canvas colours, and others with our limited Autumn canvas colours – so many hoorahs!

Alt Sketchbook: International Dial Co.
View in our Shop

We have a few blue Watch Part tins in stock – they are nearly 100 years old and have varying degrees of rust and marks of past lives. Each tin comes with 100 sheets of Fabriano Watercolor Paper, cut to size!

My Non-Dominant Hand 100 Day Project from Last Year

We don’t have many of these tins, and we are always looking for more, but in the meantime – grab your favourite tin, cut your favourite paper and voilà! Here is our short video on cutting your own paper.

Crossbody Bags made with Vintage Textiles!
View in Our Shop 

The more I return to the same flea market, the more I know where to look and find treasures in overlooked corners. These feed and sugar sacks, tool belts, and homespun make magical fun of our classic bags!

Mini Tote with Vintage Homespun German Pillow Sham: Francis	Standard Tote with Vintage Feedsack: Laurel

Mini Tote with Vintage Hardware Store Canvas Half Apron: Moose	Heavy homespun German pillow sham transformed into a Classic Tote lined with Fog.

Classic Tote with Vintage Feedsack: Heidi	For those city dwellers, travelers and others wanting more security, the Totes have a separating zipper that tucks neatly in the bag when not needed.

Mini Tote with Vintage Sugar Sack: Sugar No. 2	Mini Tote with Vintage Sugar Sack: Sugar No. 1

Pouches made with Vintage Textiles!
View in Our Shop

We’ve been finding so many gorgeous textiles at Flea Markets lately that we must tame the scale of each collection. We’ve transformed the gathering of patchwork and scrap into useful pouches, giving them new life.

These pouches are perfect for littles that need organizing. As for me, I recently used mine to gather some Persimmon seeds from the wild! They’re hard to be without and you can never have too many!

These patchwork quilts appear to have been made by two, now three, sets of hands. The small squares were first hand-stitched – they were next put together with a machine, then waiting for me to scoop them up and have Tori make them into pouches with waxed canvas lining and backing.

*Custom Pouch Sizes in this Collection: We have 7 pouch sizes in our Peg and Awl catalog, but when we find a quilt block or scrap that is perfect as is, we make the pouch match its size!

Custom Pouch with Vintage Quilt Blocks: Peecha	Custom Pouch with Antique Hand-Stitched Quilt Block: Cass

Custom Pouch with Antique Hand-Stitched Quilt Block: Maeve	The greens are lined with our Fog waxed canvas!

Custom Pouch with Antique Hand-Stitched Quilt Block: Morley	Custom Pouch with Antique Hand-Stitched Quilt Block: Lucia

Custom Pouch with Vintage Quilt Blocks: Elke	Spender Pouch with Vintage Feedsack: Maude

Alternative Sketchbook: Chartreuse Watch Parts Tin!
View in Our Shop

I couldn’t resist this colour and the mini size. Tuck it in your Sendak and come what may! The smallness makes painting ever-accessible, and the shape makes a good painting feel complete!

Antique Postcard Journals!
View in Our Shop

One of a kind Antique Postcard mini journals are back! The cover is made simply, from antique leather postcards which bear incredible old handwriting, postmarks, and on some, a stamp! The insides, as always, are made of hand-stitched Strathmore drawing paper and work wonderfully with a variety of drawing and writing materials.

Antique Postcard Journal: No. 4	Antique Postcard Journal: No. 16

These postcards are covered in handwriting, markings, and sometimes stamps!	As with all our journals, these are hand-stitched!

These minis are each one of a kind, covered with a unique postcard!	These are made with Strathmore drawing paper and work wonderfully with a variety of drawing and writing materials.

The Secret to a Good Flea (Market) Day is a Good Friend! 

Read the story that celebrates the discovery of some of the treasures in this collection at a Flea Market in the thick of the summer heat!

Art Supplies by Uppercase Magazine
Find it here!

Uppercase Magazine’s Art Supplies book is full of delectable art supplies, art, and artists. We were delighted to be invited to be part of the fun and to be in such colourful company, including some long distance friends, makers of supplies we use and love, and others altogether new to us.

Jeannine gave each maker so many pages to share our most treasured creations and moments!

Greenleaf & Blueberry
Website

Jess’s paints are so satisfying! I love painting with them, and, from a maker’s perspective, I appreciate the way the paints fill the vessels so cleanly. They look even better when messy with use!

Jeanne Oliver
Website

Beam Paints
Website

I’ve had the pleasure of chatting with Anong Beam on the telephone, as well as getting to know her through Instagram and her paints! Her exploratory process is incredibly inspiring, how I’d love to peek into her studio!

Viarco
Website

I enjoy Viarco’s water soluble graphite in many forms and always have a few pencils and a tin in my Sendak Artist Roll.

Kremer Pigments
Website

Walking into Kremer in NY years ago, changed my life! The film Turner introduced me to pigments on scales for paint making and I vaguely recall the paint making in The Rise and Fall of Silas Lapham. But walking into Kremer unlocked a reality that I was absolutely smitten with – and I’ve been making paints ever since! 

La Maison Du Pastel
Website

Watching their process of making on Instagram is mesmerizing and strangely, I want to visit and sink my teeth and being into the process. 

Musgrave Pencil Company
Website

The endless satisfaction of multiples!

Chalk Copenhagen
Website

Another scrumptious handmade pastel company. I better get to using mine up so I can try out others! 

A Ramble About Clay and My New Moss Sendak! 

We designed the Sendak for drawing and writing, and I have used mine for that since 2016. But my recent tumble into clay gave me a reason to choose another colour, and gather some new-to-me tools to fill it!

My introduction to clay was inside of this big yellow clay pot!	Cara Graver’s Cob Studio, a time traveling adventure.

‘“Who in the world am I?” Ah, that’s the great puzzle.’
–from Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

I used to drive around and explore flea markets, find abandoned houses, and take photographs with a heavy Hasselblad that hung around my neck and bruised my chest. I had a car full of props and costumes, and bags for collecting abandoned house treasures like dresses, photographs, and letters. I didn’t count minutes or hours – I just sang and let the wind move through me as I drove. I’d drop off film and wait a week or more to pick it up – the time between was for thinking. Returning to the camera shop for my 12 square prints and negatives filled me with wild anticipation and gratification for the ongoingness.

This pacing of days somehow became a forgotten, foggy past – until I found clay and Cara’s studio. I began with directions that didn’t lead to the right road in the woods. I wandered amongst tulip poplars in the wintry dimness, looking for an oversized handmade pot, where the ‘open studio’ that I signed up for was about to commence.

When I found it, everything quieted. The ‘building’ was yellow and otherworldly – out of a book, another time, or imagination. As I do, I wandered around, taking it all in with an abundance of questions and shutter clicks. Inside, there were no corners. Diffused light poured in through reclaimed windows, each a different size and each with a deep windowsill. The wood-burning stove cut the chill in the air – I could have stayed for days.

I chose a seat, and got to clay-ing.

After the making was the waiting. As I returned the next week to pick up my fired treasures, I was reminded of the days when I used to drive around and explore flea markets, find abandoned houses, and take photographs with a heavy Hasselblad that hung around my neck and bruised my chest.

The wood burning stove kept us all warm and cozy during a bit of a flurry.	The composting toilet, outside in the cold, was a kind of treat!

The Sendak Artist Roll

Shop Our Stationery Collection

We plan to interview artists and makers who use the Sendak, and share their stories and work. Until then, enjoy Darla’s well-worn Sendak that has been accompanying her for 8 years!

Photograph by Darla Jackson
All Black Sendak Artist Roll

Sendak Artist Roll
in Red Maple

I love this little treasure spot in our City Workshop – soon to be the home of someone new as we move our workshop to the Barn here at the Five Acre Wood!

Photograph by Catharine Mi-Sook

The Mini Sendak Artist Roll

Photograph by Maryse M. Almond Mini Sendak for Crocheters	Photograph by Alice O. Slate Mini Sendak for Knitters

Inside the Sendak...

Shop the Stationery Collection

4” Anselm Bookbinding Kit	Tilda Painter’s Palette

Orra Portrait Sketchbook	Brush Rest Trio

Watch our Walkthrough of the Sendak Artist Roll!

We’ve watched all of the YouTube reviews of our Sendak (thank you!) and have made our own video to answer some questions and share our experiences.

Blog: Our Sendak Walkthrough

Our Of a Kinds!

We have some treasures left from our past Of a Kind collections!

Shop Of a Kinds

A Rural Pen Ink	Essential Pouch with 1800s Dressmaker’s Fabric: Sylvia

Standard Tote with Feedsack: Winnie	Foundlings Original Art: Solidago

Essential Pouch with 1930s Textile Adlai	Small Hunter with 1800s Quilt Block: Bonnie

Everywhere, Astonishments!

• Podcast: Foodie Pharmagolocy: Animal Medication with Dr. Jaap de Roode. I’ve been catching up on all that I’ve missed recently – so many good episodes! This one feels most fun for everyone.
• Book: The Plant Hunter: A Scientist’s Quest for Nature’s Next Medicines by Cassandra Quave. Cassandra Quave is now on Substack – read here!
  
  

#100dayproject: Read More on Substack – I Heard A Hawk Today

Snowdrops! They arrived a little early here – these small wonders are always a treasure to happen upon!	Søren’s 100 Days of Tiny Worlds is starting off strong. Here is Day 2. ​@sorenscoutkent

It was such a treat to be featured in and on the cover of In Her Studio magazine! 

In Her Studio Summer 2022 Edition

Ever an Other, as it goes.

“From up here on the hill, it is easy to imagine I am somewhere other. I can travel backward and forward in time. I am not in suburbia. I am watching the barn being built – no, rebuilt – 200 years later. I am watching myself and my family, in the warm glow in the barn windows at night, pouring our experiences onto a page, a canvas. Another, other. Up here, I can clip and mow and sweat, and when I do, thoughts sprout and wither in abundance. I mowed some down as I removed the unwanted barberry, wisteria, and multiflora rose. I’ve hauled some away with bottles and dolls’ heads and plastic flower arrangements still tied in polyester strips from the ’50s and ’60s that have reigned for much too long in this woodland. But up here, my shoulders and my back have stretched and strengthened, and I’ve built towers of words and collected piles of ideas and have squirreled them away somewhere. The moving does me good. Up here, in our tiny wilderness, both I and the land are transformed. The place where I gather inspiration is just as important as the place where I sit down and turn the gatherings into something other.” 

Curious, and always with my rump toward the sky, I gather colour, and other treasures from the earth and transform it into gritty and delicious watercolour paints! 

I always love finding antique treasures for my art supplies in my studio. 

A view from the woodland, also, my favourite family portrait in the creek – though we are in need of a new one. Søren now stands above Walter and me!	This was my studio briefly. We are currenly in the process of transforming it into a showroom/gallery space! Read about our Barn Renovation process, here!

The 100 Day Project begins on February 22, This Year (2023)!

#100DayProject

“Little by little, a little becomes a lot.”
–Tanzanian Proverb

“I trusted its unknowing...”
–Ada Limón in conversation with Krista Tippett
​(On Being Podcast episode: ‘To Be Made Whole’)

I love the excitement of a new beginning – of whittling down endless possibilities and choosing one project that I will embark on for one hundred days. I love knowing that not every day will produce a masterpiece, but by the end, the collection of days will add up to more than where I began. I know that I will be transported. I know that I will slip out of a comfort zone and that I will know more about a subject that I am curious about than I did at the start.

One year I was drawing the variety of plants within a mile or two of my home. Another year, I drew one character and explored the space around her. For the last two years, I’ve been enjoying the smudgy otherness of my left hand. This somehow has given me a new confidence, as if that hand is not me, but a being I am nurturing – a not-myself.

I start somewhere simple – a walk in the woods or making a meal with a new-to-me vegetable – starting with something doable puts me on a path. I make time and space for it – it needn’t be a lot of time, or a lot of space, though it could be. One year I started my drawings on small pieces of paper that I cut to fit inside of an old tin. This led to a daily walk, an abundance of tiny flower paintings, and to our Alternative Sketchbooks!

The repetition becomes meditation, the process is wondrous. By the end, I may find something revelatory.

This year, though I am still undecided, I am leaning toward a new medium.

Where will you begin?

The Projects are Endless!

How to Spend these 100 Days?

100 Days of Clay	100 Days of Any-Handed Sketching

100 Days of Making Ink from Foraged Plants	100 Days of Paper Cut Buildings This is Søren’s cabin!

100 Days of Letter Writing A Letter from Katie!	100 Days of Your Sweetest Our Darling Pearly

I limit my materials...	The framework can be broad or specific...

Start Small and Document!
Shop Our Studio Collection 

Venture Outside The Scout Plein Air Box	Stay Home The Sendak Artist Roll

Start Organized Medium Botanical Desk Caddy	Let Things Find You The Hunter Satchel

Pack Light The Keeper Pouch	Keep Everything in Sight Beatrix Artist Caddy

The 100 Day Project in a Sketchbook!

Bookbinding Tutorial: Planning a Journal for the 100 Day Project

“You can be in a place for years and years and not see somehing, and then when it dawns, all sorts of nuggets of richness start popping up all over the place. You’ve gotten below the obvious.”
–Andrew Wyeth

Some #100DayProjects that I love!

@yoshiko_hada	@ellamorella

Everywhere, Astonishments!
Some Good Things

We are changing Some Good Things to Everywhere Astonishments, (also the title of a picture book I’ve been working on). I find astonishments daily, and am thrilled to have a place to share some of them.

• Podcast: February 2nd’s episode of On Being, Krista Tippet interviews Dacher Keltner about his new book entitled AWE: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life. Sometimes I feel like a lightning bug flashing in time with the others, but I suppose we have our antennae out when we dig into a thing. There is a fine line between magic and understanding why. I love walking on it, that line, and peering in on both sides.
• Recipe: Citrus Salad by @pierceabernathy – yum!
• Art: Berman Museum at Ursinus College: I went to see Lydia Ricci’s work that I previously only knew from Instagram. Seeing it in person, along with the titles, was an unexpected time travel to a world on the cusp of a distant familiarity. Visit her during ‘studio hours’ at the museum. In addition to Lydia’s work, were the well-worn paint brushes transformed into elegantly painted portraits by Rebecca Szeto, as well as sculpture, photography, and more.

By Lydia Ricci Website	By Rebecca Szeto Website

We put together a little video so you can make your own book for the #100dayproject! Enjoy, ask questions, and share with us on Instagram so we can see your projects too!

#qbbc100days
#quarantinebookbindingproject
#pegandawlbinds

Please note: this tutorial is specifically about page count. Click here for the full Bookbinding at Home Tutorial: Stitching a Coverless Journal. 

In this video, I’m making two books at a time, both specifically made for the 100 day project. They are both the same size with just a few variations. I find this project to be a really nice reason to get out and observe the world.

These are the two journals, highlighting different colors and vintage textiles!	Here you can see a full journal spread dedicated to one day!

When you’re making a book for a particular project, it’s really important to consider both paper size and page count of your book. I’m making this book for my 100 day project, so I’m going to consider how many pages I will need for the 100 days. Usually, I like to dedicate a full spread to one day, so I’m going to need double the pages, though in some instances, I’ll use one page per day.

Journal Page Planning

If your 100 day project will consist of one spread per day, then you will need 52 sheets, which is the size of one full page spread open. Once you fold a single sheet in half, it’s called a folio. You'll be putting 4 folios inside of each other and that will make up one signature. You will have a total of 13 signatures. That will give you 202 pages, not counting the front and back cover. The few extra pages can come in handy for notes or whatever you may want to add.

If you want to make a book that is dedicating one page to a day, then you will need 27 sheets. You’ll be putting 3 folios inside of each other, and that will make up one signature. You will have a total of 9 signatures. And this will give you 106 pages not counting the front and back cover.

Now that I’ve finished folding and tearing my signatures, I’m going to measure out where I want the textiles to be sewn onto the spine of the book. I’m going to start with my quarter inch ends – this is for the end knots. 

The end knots form lines along the ends.

Measuring and marking my linen and thread layout on one signature.	Then, marking another signature and putting one in front and one in back of the stack.

Usually, I would now put these signatures into a clamp, and use a ruler to connect the front and back markings in a straight line. However, if you don't have a clamp, these double-sided marks will help. In the video, you can see how I use a jeweler saw to make the holes, instead of poking them one at a time (once again, for full instructions: Bookbinding Tutorial - How to Sew a Coverless Journal).

Now I am just going to cut some of this wonderful vintage textile that I found in an abandoned house. 

I am making the strips an inch wide so they can really show off the pattern.	A lot of you have been asking what kind of thread I am using; this is a 3 ply waxed Irish Linen thread.

I have 13 of these signatures, and I’m going to measure 13 lengths of wax thread, slightly larger than the length of the spine. I don’t want a lot of extra thread, because the longer your thread is, especially for a big book like this, the more tangled it’s going to get while you’re sewing. Also, if you cut your thread too short so that you have less to manage, you’re going to have to knot it somewhere in your book, which is not a big deal (but I don't like doing it).

This feedsack textile was in a bundle that I found in my favorite abandoned house that belonged to Flossie and Jack.	Step-by-step sewing instructions!

I have been incorporating antique materials of all kinds into the work that I do for most of my life. I love the stories that they hold, the character, and the quality of these old things. This fascination is what started me off on incorporating textiles into my journals. 

My friend and I found all of Flossie’s dresses in the attic of her abandoned house; we washed them and wore them for years. We saw all the evidence of the patching and the stitching as these were likely from the depression era. 

This red feedsack was originally stitched together to make a bag for grain, and then people would use the patterns and the normal cotton feedstock textiles to make clothes; so this was most likely the negative space from the pattern that was cut, and then they used a piece to tie the entire bundle together.

I am using this delightful leftover for my journal. 

Just one stack of many vintage textiles we’ve used in our projects.	Can you spot the vintage touches in these past sketchbooks?

I’ve participated in this challenge for the last few years, as it encourages me to make marks daily. Some of the drawings in these sketchbooks took 5 minutes, others took hours. It doesn’t matter how long I spend with each drawing, just that I sat down to make some marks.

In 2021 I used Noodlers Black Ink (with the catfish on the front) and my left (non-dominant) hand for my 100 Day Project. I loved it so much that I've done it for nearly 300 days out of the year - that is three #100dayproject notebooks and a rather newly-skilled left hand!

A finished project.	At my desk, with my Sendak Mini and Beatrix Caddies.

I've been sharing my drawings on my art/family account on Instagram @thebrotherskent.	I also write with my left hand. It was such a different experience from my meandering Morning Pages!